Online Social Signals essential to PR…

It seems that page 1 of Google is becoming just as much the bread and butter of good PR as coverage in top print titles these days…

This was my thinking, at least, when I read about the recent survey from Branded3 which found that URLs receive a significant boost in Google rankings when they are shared on Twitter, with those receiving over 7,500 tweets almost always ranking inside the top five results on search engines.

Naturally, being a generally savvy bunch many in the PR industry have already capitalised on digital opportunities and we’ve been blessed with an array of much celebrated integrated campaigns for brands over the past couple of years. However, whilst there’s been plenty of speculation with regards to social media’s SEO impact, I have to say that this is the first piece of research that has provided tangible results that I can relay back to clients when recommending online PR.

The correlation between tweets and search engine rankings is big news for PR professionals. Social media is PR in its most organic form – direct dialogue. If this direct dialogue can now impact the hotly coveted page 1 of Google then surely that’s good news! Particularly if you need to, ahem, push down some of the less attractive search results that appear for some brands when searched. It’s my firm belief that good PR is now essential to all parts of digital marketing – getting people talking about your brand is essential to SEO.

Now what this means for Twitter and its rather fledgling business plan, I’m not sure. I remember thinking earlier in the year than the likes of Snoop Dog tweeting about Toyota’s ‘Swagger Wagons,’ and a host of celebs tweeting about Snickers UK was an opportunity missed for Twitter as third party ad agencies had capitalised on the talent pool and reach that the social network has at its disposal. Perhaps the news from Branded3 will convince more brands to part with the huge budgets required to set up promoted accounts and tweets on Twitter?

Either way, this is big news and confirms what many have been thinking for some time.